Just as emotionally manipulative as fellow teen fare like A Walk To Remember and If I Stay , but less as effective as Me, Earl and the Dying Girl and The Fault in Our Stars , Five Feet Apart is typically schmaltzy and insultingly pedestrian, but, as cinematic history has demonstrated, deliver on exactly what you promise – which is often easier said than done when it comes to film – and you’re likely to end up with a product that’s remotely successful.
Almost as manipulative as “Everything, Everything,” or “A Walk to Remember,” less wrenching than “Me and Earl and the Dying Girl,” more medical than “The Fault in Our Stars,” almost as drawn-out as, oh, “Romeo and Juliet” — that’s “Five Feet Apart.”
With the premise being what it is, it should come as no surprise that Five Feet Apart aspires to be the kind of weepie teenage drama like A Walk to Remember, the kind of film that will be a formative experience for the right demographic due to exactly how many tears you shed in the third act.
None of these complaints were raised about Fault in Our Stars , or any other similarly themed dramas about teens in dire circumstances ( A Walk to Remember , The Spectacular Now , etc).
From A Walk to Remember to The Fault in Our Stars , the Sick Teen Movie has become a genre in and of itself.
Movies such as “A Walk to Remember” and “The Fault in Our Stars” are pop culture touchstones.